Quotes

“Fred at the piano is like LeBron James on the basketball court. He’s perfection.”

Jason Moran

"…a pianist, composer and conceptualist of rare imaginative power."

Nate Chinen, The New York Times

“Hersch’s work has developed an intensity of intelligence and emotional directness unparalleled among his peers.”

Steve Futterman, The New Yorker

“…one of the most sensitive and genuinely lyrical players in jazz.”

Bob Blumenthal, The Atlantic Monthly

"...the most arrestingly innovative pianist in jazz over the last decade or so"

Tad Hendrikson, Vanity Fair

“A pristine pianist with a poet’s soul – a pair of qualities that combine to especially dazzling effect.”

Joan Anderman, The Boston Globe

“…he stands among jazz’s first rank of pianists, yet promotes no particular style. He plays it his way: with a light touch and a focus on melody one moment; swinging freely the next as he inverts harmonies or deconstructs forms; tender, then tough, then yet more tender, always shaping the sound of his piano or his band into something personal.”

Larry Blumenfeld, Wall Street Journal

“Singular among the trailblazers of their art, a largely unsung innovator of this borderless, individualistic jazz – a jazz for the 21st century – is the pianist and composer Fred Hersch.”

The New York Times Sunday Magazine

“Hersch’s crystalline touch, silky phrasing and harmonic intelligence make him one of our best pianists.”

Paul DeBarros, DownBeat

“Fred Hersch is one of the most formidably complete piano improvisers playing today.”

John Fordham, The Guardian (UK)

“One of the poet laureates of modern jazz piano.”

Andrea Canter, Jazz Police

“A smart, lyrical pianist and composer with a distinctive sound and an unassuming manner, five-time Grammy nominee Fred Hersch is one of the most important jazz musicians of his generation.”

Fernando Gonzales, The Miami Herald

“...by turns thrilling, rollicking, tender, ominous or playful.... jazz does not get any better.”

Peter Hum, The Ottawa Citizen

“… all the visionary eclecticism of Miles Davis or John Coltrane… original compositions that are a rare and disarming combination of oddball ideas and dazzling beauty.”

David Hajdu, The Hollywood Reporter

“… transcends jazz tradition while nestling snugly within it.”

Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader

"When it comes to the art of solo piano in jazz, there are currently two classes of performers: Fred Hersch and everybody else."

Dan Bilawsky, All About Jazz

“Mr. Hersch is one of jazz's strongest, most distinct, solo pianists….Mr. Hersch's balance of luxurious beauty and innovative ideas, his dedication to pure sound, and his catholic repertoire choices have profoundly influenced a younger generation of jazz pianists, among them his former students Brad Mehldau and Ethan Iverson.”

Larry Blumenfeld, Wall Street Journal

“… one of the major jazz ensembles of our time.”

Will Friedwald, Wall Street Journal

“… Hersch’s trio… displays all the rhythmic daring, preternatural interplay, harmonic sophistication and passionate lyricism that makes it one of the era’s definitive ensembles.”

Jazz in NY

“…a poet of the keyboard with an unerring ability to get inside a tune and reveal its secrets… a supremely gifted trio in full and joyous flight, attuned to every nuance in the music, conscious of, but not constrained by, the ghosts that haunt the stage.”

The Irish Times

“A master who plays it his way."

Ben Ratliff, The New York Times

“...one of the greatest contemporary pianists.”

The New Yorker

“…specializes in high lyricism and high danger.”

The New Yorker

"...a fervent force to be reckoned with."

Jon Regen, Keyboard Magazine

“…music that is as intelligent as it is touching, as virtuosic as it is swinging.”

Don Heckman, The Los Angeles Times

"...one of the small handful of brilliant musicians of his generation.”

Fred Bouchard, DownBeat

“Hersch is one of the major living jazz pianists… so technically refined, so comprehensive in his coverage of the mainstream piano universe, he evades categorization. In a perfect world where you were king, you would sit Fred Hersch down and make him play every song you ever loved.”

Thomas Conrad, New York City Jazz Record

“…one of the great masters of jazz piano.”

David Adler, New York City Jazz Record

"Hersch has remarkably produced a lasting legacy of performances, recordings, and compositions that represent the highest level of musical achievement—works unrivaled in their beauty, imagination, and complexity...a clarity and musical genuis of the highest order".

Victor Schermer, All About Jazz

“A pianist of uncommon sensitivity and elegant lyricism combined with an infinite capacity to swing.”